The Insider's View of The Outsider

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I drove around the back end of lake Quonnipaug with the intention of capturing the waterfall and the surrounding barren sunflower fields. It’s not unusual for me to stop and get out of the car to explore the area to take an image. I came by a fence line that had been covered by some colorfully painted shutters and paneling. Someone gave them a new life jazzing them up with splashes of color. As I crouched down to take the image, I unintentionally saw a massive freestanding sculpture in the back yard. I had one of those feelings that I have experienced before, it made me think, "Do I move forward or retreat…"

I was torn. For three years, as I wrote and photographed my first blog, I learned quickly that to find interesting content and imagery, you just can’t be a wallflower.

The small cottage had character, clearly the home of the artist, I imagined. I knocked. It took a few minutes and from inside a dog barked and I could hear someone. I couldn't tell if it was avoidance or connectivity.

A man opened the door and I introduced myself as a fellow artist type and a photographer. In that very moment, we both assessed each other. There was a barrier, even if it wasn’t type you could see. I could sense he was deciding if he was willing to let me into his passioned world of art that covered every inch of space in his home. I wondered if anyone had really seen this spectacle or if this was a secret garden that this fully immersed artist only ever saw. From the outside was a row of modest lake homes, closely packed, endowed with all the traits of regular life. People would come and go to Walmart, mow their lawns, and drive their kids to soccer. Inside, just steps away from this suburbia was an entirely different world.

As I took a step inside, I looked around the small parlor room and was greeted by mannequins who were posed, perfectly dressed as if they were deep in a conversation I could not hear. I took a deep breath and rather than judge their quiet gazes, I introduced myself and shook the hand of the artist named Bob Parker.

He was friendly and I quickly felt at ease around him despite his eclectic display. He asked if I would like to see his art studio in the basement. Once again, I was torn over whether I wanted to take a deeper step into the somewhat macabre world I had entered. Around the narrow stairway, were elaborate handcrafted dioramas, way more polished than the type you would make out of a shoe box when you were doing grade school projects. I knew immediately that I was looking at voodoo alters, only because the last artist I had spoken just a week before gave me an entire lesson in the concepts around them.

They were beautiful, kinda terrifying, incredibly well crafted and just a tip of the iceberg in this creative dwelling. As I walked deeper in his world, I entered into a basement room exploding with color, light, and the kind of unexplainable energy that defined this man. I looked up and a heavy laden mesh full of lights intertwined with thousands of trinkets weighed down like a bulge from the rafters. He told me that he’s beginning to have neck issues from bending over to navigate this room.

My senses were exploding, and I squinted trying to focus on objects so seemingly unrelated yet somehow worked to create the perfectly composed puzzle. It was hard to talk as I took it all in because I wanted to focus on both the discussion with the artist as well as absorbing the seemingness endless content. I was fascinated by his work…metal bottle caps hammered into beautiful necklaces, hundreds of orange peels painted into a vibrant living canvas, tuna can lids positioned into a beautiful composition of reds and silvers. It was overwhelming.

At the surface, it felt like the plot of Stephen king novel was unfolding. But rather than feed into the fear that some of it evoked, I captured it’s details so I could go back and interpret it later. I was excited that he would take the time to pose for some portraits because he looked so at home next to his art and i was unsure if he had in his possession a photo of himself immersed in his world.

I was proud that he was willing to share his work because not all creatives feel comfortable doing that, especially this one who could unnerve the observer. I learned later that an artist like Bob in the art world is called an “outsider”. They aren’t afraid to reach into the depths of their minds and reveal what dwells. n famous outsider artist named Joe Coleman is known to spend up to 8 hours creating a square inch of space depicting his unhinged vision. In a similar sense I felt that Bob has a very organic approach where one piece of the canvas just grows from what was last imagined and concocted.

It all comes together somehow for Bob, in a frenetic pace that spans his every 24 hour day , he takes bits of pieces from all parts of life whether it’s his aunts dentures, or a business card or a candy wrapper: it all somehow deserves it’s spotlight on his canvas.

On the drive home, I passed home after home, all looking so uniform in this world. I kept thinking of the good fortune I had to dive into one that was so unorthodox and free. One so different from we often denote as the rat race.

A week later, I feel I have had enough time to let the shock factor settle in so I can share it with you. Before I did this, I needed an answer to the begging question, what inspires Bob? His answer was sent in a brief note… “I think there is a certain beauty in the depiction of suffering as in something like the crucifixion . I like edgy work that lets the viewer stop and ponder.” Job well done Bob, Ill be doing just that for quite some time.

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